Beautiful Oblivion
by Darlin
Summary: A Wanda and Vision story. ***WARNING: there be spoilers ahead!***


**Beautiful Oblivion**

 **by Darlin**

She sees as if in a fog and far, far away. She sees but doesn't, she hears but can't. She's lived through this before. It can't be happening again and yet it is. Wanda Maximoff never dreamt of castles in the skies. Daydreams weren't the stuff she allowed herself, nor dreams of any kind. Dreams were fragile, foolish lottery tickets, hopes to be blown away with a puff of reality.

Wanda could shape reality to fit her needs, to survive, but she never tried to warp her own reality. Maybe she feared her powers, maybe she feared to try to make her life the dream she wished she could dream but feared to.

Pain and death were part of her life, so closely entwined they were almost inseparable for her. Imprisonment, the gaining of her powers, the loss of her parents and her beloved brother. Losing Pietro almost broke her. He was her twin, her protector, inseparable – like life and death, inevitable realities.

But her reality was no one else's reality. The android they called Vision was her reality. Whatever Vision was, an android to Tony, a mystery to others, a calculating, dogmatic threat to those who chose not to side with Tony, he is everything to her. An ironic turn in a life so bleak and yet with the Vision, when he looked at her she felt cared for and loved and there was sudden hope – she was able to dream.

Somehow she knew her brother never would have approved but she couldn't keep herself away from the Vision. On opposite sides of the law, they met on the sly, love growing, fulfilling, healing. Loving Vision soothed the ache of loosing her brother.

Maybe Cap understood for he had lost too and so much. She'd never told him what she was doing, where exactly that she was going all the many times she'd met Vision in secret trysts of desperate need. Respite she called it without details. It was all she had asked of Steve and he had allowed it as long as she followed the rules. And when she hadn't returned on time he'd saved her and Vision. But she had changed her mind. What was there to return to if there was no chance to dream, no love? Her mother and brother lost, all she had was Vision – a dream come alive.

And now, as Wanda Maximoff sends all her power into the crystal mind stone that's embedded in her lover's skull, she knows she must end him to save them all. And she knows killing him will be as if she were killing herself. And when she turns to confront Thanos, world-ender or mad Titan, she cannot help hoping he will destroy her so she does not have to destroy the man she loves.

But as she looks into the Vision's eyes she sees her dreams and hope and love, bright and certain, mixed with resignation and sorrow. She knows he feels what she feels. He does not cry though she does. Neither thought it would end like this. She wants to stop trying to kill her lover and instead try to flee, to fly on her powers, away, far away, forever fleeing. But Hawkeye taught her that they were a team, that a team stood together just as they had with her and her brother, just as she had for them, just as she would now, for herself, for the world, no matter the cost. This will not be another Sokovia.

When it is over, her face wet with tears shed from her soul, she is nothing. There is nothing left in her. She has nothing. She'd dared to dream, to hope, to change her life with the man she loved. She would laugh a tortured laugh of madness but she can barely think. Her life has ended even if the mad Titan doesn't end it for her. She has lost everything in the killing of her lover.

But in a blink of an eye, reality is twisted, time suspended, rewound and her Viz is alive! Her shock mixes with joy mixing with horror and terror. Too late she realizes Thanos' plan and she can do nothing to stop it. She can't go there again, she won't go there again. She cannot kill Vision again. And even if she were swifter than the man with the gauntlet her heart beats anew as she stares at the man she loves, reborn. And then she screams as he screams, feels what he must feel, as Thanos extracts the Infinity stone.

Now she still lives but Vision does not. He is a lifeless gray thing that is neither man nor android, bereft of life, as if no emotions, no feelings, no thought of her had ever circled in his brain, his being, his heart. He is as lost to her as when she had destroyed him to save the world. And again she is lost, but this time it is as if she's falling into an never ending abyss of agony.

When she feels her insides swirl, her hands start to tingle, her mind discombobulate, she knows and she opens her mouth to smile or give thanks, no one can know which. She alone knows for she welcomes death. Without Vision there is no life for her now.

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust – what mystery death. Would it be a long rest or total beautiful, welcomed oblivion? No matter. As long as she cannot feel she doesn't care where she goes as she dissolves into the darkness of eternity. Thanos may have won in this moment but she has won too.


End file.
